Zalman Z-Machine GT1000

Zalman is not normally known for their cases, but they are looking to please gamers everywhere with their Z-Machine GT1000. With it’s black aluminum frame, the case is built like a tank. But is it worth your $400?

Installation, Testing

To get a feel for the ease of use of the GT1000, the same hardware used in past case reviews will be installed into the Zalman case. This hardware includes:

The first thing we do is to put the motherboard into place and secure it by bolting the board to the stand offs. The pre-installed standoffs were nice to see and the Commando fits into the GT1000 as it should.

We chose to install our hard drive in the drive cage as opposed to the bottom. While I like the expandability of the bottom mounts, there will be direct airflow across the drives provided by the front two 92mm fans. Not only that, but the installation of the drives in the cage involves no use of tools and is simply a “slide it in until it stops” type procedure.

Like we pointed out earlier in the review, the drive bays also make installation quite simple with their attached thumb screws. Small tool less features like this make the installation process very convenient.

One thing that we would like to point out as well is the power supply installation. While there is plenty of room to place a larger power supply in the Z-Machine, there is an odd omission of any rail, shelf or support system. This seems a bit odd to us but using the provided hex bolts, and taking into consideration the thickness of the back plate of the case, there shouldn’t be any concerns as to whether or not the power supply is supported well enough our not.

With everything installed, let’s power the Zalman up and see how it looks with its red fans spinning away. One other thing to mention is the brightness of the power and hard drive activity LEDs. They certainly stand out as well.

As the pictures show, the red glow of the three included fans look absolutely solid and give off a unique look compared to the normal blue lights that most cases today use. It should be mentioned that the titanium colored GT1000 uses this blue light scheme and if I were in the market for an updated gaming chassis for my own PC, I would personally choose the black and red combination. The green light of the Zalman 9700 doesn’t look to bad in the case and works reasonably well with the red lights.

We have taken looks at many different cases and for a while, we compared the temperature results to the others. While our hardware has remained the same, the test environment has changed a bit and while the temperatures are quite comparable, we are simply giving the temperatures that we got from the Zalman GT1000.